An Associative Analysis of Recognition Memory: Relative Recency Effects in an Eye-Tracking Paradigm

We report 2 eye-tracking experiments with human variants of 2 rodent recognition memory tasks, relative recency and object-in-place. In Experiment 1 participants were sequentially exposed to 2 images, A then B, presented on a computer display. When subsequently tested with both images, participants biased looking toward the first-presented image A: the relative recency effect. When contextual stimuli x and y, respectively, accompanied A and B in the exposure phase (xA, yB), the recency effect was greater when y was present at test, than when x was present. In Experiment 2 participants viewed 2 identical presentations of a 4-image array, ABCD, followed by a test with the same array, but in which one of the pairs of stimuli exchanged position (BACD or ABDC). Participants looked preferentially at the displaced stimulus pair: the object-in-place effect. Three further conditions replicated Experiment 1’s findings: 2 pairs of images were presented one after the other (AB followed by CD); on a test with AB and CD, relative recency was again evident as preferential looking at AB. Moreover, this effect was greater when the positions of the first-presented A and B were exchanged between exposure and test (BACD), compared with when the positions of second-presented C and D were exchanged (ABDC). The results were interpreted within the theoretical framework of the Sometime Opponent Process model of associative learning (Wagner, 1981).